Such a good and frustrating feeling at the same time.

Try pinging the artist or label for a promo. Unlikely they'll say yes, but you never know, it establishes a relationship and puts your name in front of them. You can easily say "I'll buy it once it's out" and send them a receipt when it is, which is something too - I'm always stunned at how few DJs actually pay for music.

I've ended up quite friendly with some pretty big acts off the back of approaching them this way and getting a relationship early on in their careers. You'd be surprised at how much up-and-coming acts appreciate genuine support, as in actually playing their tracks out and pushing them in front of audiences.

You'll get ignored way more than you'll get replies, and the replies will often be no, but that's life.

This is good advice -- the next best alternative (this is what I do) is to a) add the track/album in question to your Wishlist if it's on Bandcamp or b) create a specific (private) playlist on Soundcloud for unreleased tunes you like

If the clip/preview is on Soundcloud, then having that playlist will make it way easier to go back and check later on all your favorite forthcoming tracks, to see which ones have been released!

I tried this with Jauz on Twitter when I kept hearing him drop Super duper fly at festivals. He just told me soon, which was super cool that he even responded and 1 week later the song came out. Might be one of my favorite songs of his.

Not directly related but why do some digital releases have the pre-order option on Beatport nowadays? I understand preordering a limited vinyl pressing but for digital? Might as well wait until it’s available to go online on internet stores...

I don't understand the point of a digital pre-order. I just stick it in my hold bin and purchase it after it's released. I do understand why Beatport offers it though – of course they'll take your money as soon as they can.

Its simple. The more pre orders the bigger the garauntee for investors that they got a promising release. Those numbers create the price range you can ask for the music upfront, if its a hit the residuals come later, somebodies paying upfront to get them out there. The tracks are finished.

Most techno and house labels don’t operate on that level and getting an ep out only costs a lot when there’s vinyl pressing involved (and even then it’s often subsidised by the distributor for smaller labels). Only the bigger ones will have a team and a decent little pot for marketing.

I know Ive made my share of free tracks cause they didnt even recover the cost of the vinyl they were pressed on. I was refering to the labels on the cusp more. They really try to model the giants that do make money. So they look like a bigger deal to the consumers, they offer up a pre-sale. This makes you feel like your gonna miss it if you dont get in on it right away. I know djs catch on to it quick from experience. But youd be surprised how many people fall for that shit. Like theyre gonna sell out of copies and you'll miss your chance. Lol. Its also unfortunate that music is so easy to steal and copy once its out there now. So the window for capitalizing on the hype is short, because there's another one coming right behind it to drowned it.

It’s just getting it out there and heard. The longer it’s up there, specially at the top of the pile, the more chance of people seeing it. There’s really no trick going on. It only benefits the artists and labels who put their money up to make them possible in the first place

Im not saying it doesn't benefit them, the guy who signs the check wants his money back to make more records. Its these guys that have to stress about the bottom line. Djs are expected to have fresh new tracks coming out their ears, Its part of the job. So the average listener (who isnt a Dj) can now have the same fresh new music the djs have by pre ordering and getting it the second its available. Like the old record pools (made for djs) used to work, but the volume of music and time between release has changed so much the ability to profit from thar system is very difficult.

I was really pleased with a mix I had just posted to Mixcloud, when I decided to research some of the tracks for a blog post... and found 2 of them hadn’t been released yet, but came in a folder of promo items sent by a 3rd party friend just prior. So I contacted the acts and actually got really appreciative responses, but one of them asked that I please not promote my mix yet, while they geared up promotion for their official release in a few weeks. I thought this was really generous, since I would have pulled the mix altogether if they asked me to. One of the tracks got released as planned, but with little fanfare. The other one... remains unreleased, 6 years later! ... But it remains in rotation in many of my sets. Still no word o. Why they haven’t put it out properly yet. In both cases, the contact was extremely beneficial, and I’m now on their promo lists whenever they’ve got new releases in the works.

I’ll never understand this. What’s even more backwards is that labels sometimes put out radio edits beforehand, and are available on iTunes weeks before the full mix. Completely backwards if you ask me. The regular random listener doesn’t need early access to play it out. We do. That said, they know the average person isn’t going to buy the radio edit to play it early and then but the full version too when it finally gets released. Boils down to being a money grab.

No actually the desire to not want to even see a song or a game until it's fully finished is not apples to oranges.

Actually, being able to listen to a song yourself but not be able to play it in public for other people is very much like buying a game that's supposed to have multiplayer but it doesn't when it launches.

I'm a musician myself, not a DJ, so forgive my ignorance. But I have no idea what you are talking about when you say "ripping off the artist." If a DJ buys a track on iTunes, the artist gets like a nickle or 10 cents, if it's sold via Bandcamp, maybe 75 cents. In other words, the money involved in a DJ buying a track from an artist is negligible if there is even any money at all. If you play the track in a packed crowd, on the other hand, you expose a ton of people to the music, which is worth far more than the pennies the artist makes (if that) from selling a single track to one DJ.

Here's why you should buy an artists track. Yes, you're right, most of that money probably won't go to the artist.

Beatport, iTunes, or whatever site you're buying from gets to take a hefty cut. They have to pay for lots of people to develop and maintain a platform that makes it convenient for us DJs to buy and download high quality audio files. They also make it easy for us to discover new artists, and in turn for new artists to be discovered. In my mind, it is completely justified for these platforms to take their cut - how big that is, I'm not exactly sure.

Now most of the remaining money will probably go to whatever record label the artist is signed to. This also makes sense because the record label in most cases has to pay for the mastering of the track, cover art, promotion, legal fees, etc.

To add to my last point, I follow a couple of my favorite labels on Instagram. Whenever they are pushing new tracks or a label party at a club - they are doing some serious promo with high quality art work and animations. Having helped throw small events at my university, I know this stuff isn't cheap.

Now hopefully the artist themselves will start to see some returns at this point. As you said it might not be much, but it's still something. A lot of the money that you spent when you bought the track went towards supporting and promoting the release.

Not only that, but you buying the track will help it to move up in the charts, in turn resulting in more people discovering and buying it. Some of these people inevitably will be other DJs. Now you and every other DJ that bought the track will go play it out at events resulting in even more support (a lot more support than one DJ pirating it and playing it out a few times).

In the end, the artist (hopefully) got to take home a paycheck - however small or large that may be, and their music has been promoted to a higher standard than it otherwise could have been. This helps the DJ to build a following, which will hopefully someday allow him to quit his day job to tour and produce full time.

Just realized you added this edit. Those points are all totally fair. I do believe we should support artists if we can. I'm certainly not an advocate for piracy, I guess I was just thinking about ways to avoid waiting for a release date. But for the reasons you say, it's probably best to do what will give some indication to the artist/label that consumers are digging the material.